“If the Minaj is too big for you, we also offer the Kardashian midsize line, one of which is a convertible! If you want some more flash, there is also the Beyonce’, our best sports car ever! Visit your AMC dealer today!”

Classic Marketing 101: when trying to sell something undesirable, show T&A instead. Does it work? Tell me, without scrolling back up, what color is the Pacer? Now tell me, is she blonde? What color is the dress? What did you remember? See, it works. And you will remember the ad, if not the car.

I posted it because it was funny and because it is the antithesis of the classic VW ads. Which would make you take a car more seriously, the ‘Lemon’ ad or the ‘Ass’ ad posted here 🙂 Those sold steak, this sells sizzle – although I think a Pacer would have been a very tough sell for use on those narrow Parisian streets and well, it doesn’t have much sizzle to begin with.

A Pacer in Paris would sell for about the same reasons that a Citroen sold here in Cleveland. Somebody with a bit of money and the desire to have something that nobody else in the arrondissement has. There are those who follow trends, and those who boldly go where others do not.

I would love to know who bought these. Presumably a Pacer was pretty expensive in France, and usually when Europeans make the effort to buy an American car, they buy an “AMERICAN!!!” car, not some weird small car that isn’t small.

At least the Cleveland Citroen would typically have had certain capabilities unavailable from Detroit. Yes the Pacer had a style all its own, but that was it, apart from a remarkable ability to burn fuel.

Just out of curiosity, I’d love to see the sales comparison for Citroen in the US vs AMC in France. I can see Jeeps finding a home in Paris and elsewhere, but Gremlins and Pacers? Then again, who knows what people will find intriguing, as you say.

When I lived in Guatemala City, C.A. in 1976 my brother in law was a local Customs Agent and thought he had to impress so he bought a new four door Matador in 1974 ~ BIG 258 CID i6 engine and three on the tree….

I had to work on it occasionally and drove it a few times, nice but not fancy in any way .

He really thought he’d hit the big time, driving a big American car .

-Nate

MarcKyle64

Posted August 1, 2017 at 11:48 AM

Matadors are nice cars, and durable with that big six. The 258 was as tough as the slant six

-Nate

Posted August 1, 2017 at 10:43 PM

Yes, it was until they used it in the Concords with a crappy plastic valve cover that was a bear to make leak proof .

I personally like the Matadors .

There was one pissed off AMC worked though who deliberately left the lower left ball joint nut loose on _Police_ spec. Matadors and there were numerous crashes and a factory TSB .

The big 401 V* was quite the stormer too but had very poor bottom end oiling leading to lots and lots of three year old Matadors & Jeeps for sale with rod knocks, this during a gas crisis (fake) so gas guzzlers were a hard sell even when running well, near impossible when needing a $1,800.00 engine job .

I well remember L.A.P.D. racing around NW L.A. after gang bangers in 401 equipped matador black and white radio cars ~ very impressive .

Jean-Charles, the French importer of the Pacer, managed to get a few A-listers interested in the new AMC back in 1975 — among whom, Brigitte Bardot. Hence the ad. They couldn’t get Bardot to pose for them, so they did the next best thing and drew a Bardot-like derriere. Viz the pic below, taken a good 15 years earlier (in an MG, I believe)…

Jean-Charles managed to shift 2000-3000 Pacers in France in 5 years — not a bad score in those days. I’m not sure GM sold half as many Corvettes in France back then.